


Run with the Haunted

by clawstoagunfight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Darkness, Dealing with the darkness, F/M, Feelings, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, Happy Ending, Losing Time, Nemeton, Rarepair November, Rarepair repop, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clawstoagunfight/pseuds/clawstoagunfight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the constant, overwhelming ache in his chest becomes too much, Stiles goes to the river to be alone with his thoughts. Allison finds him and teaches him he doesn't have to be alone anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run with the Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [thewolfthatwrites](../users/thewolfthatwrites/pseuds/thewolfthatwrites). Thank you for the constant belief and encouragement and for pushing me to never give up.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "I Run with the Haunted" by Alexander Correia.

  _When everything you love is everything you break_

_And everything you hold starts to slowly slip away._

*

 

Stiles tries not to think about the hollowness inside of his chest; the empty ache that always seems to be sucking the air from his lungs, making his fingers shake and his head spin. He tries not to think about how _everything’s going to fall apart_ and how _he can’t do anything but watch_ and then he tries desperately not to think about how _he’s always the one left to pick up the pieces_  and how _he’d do anything not to have to be there for the carnage and the fallout._ Sometimes, when the emptiness starts to eat at him and nothing seems to stop the constant, incessant buzzing of _thinkthinkthink_ and _dosomethingdosomething_ , he goes out into the woods, by the riverbank where his mother used to take him.

That was before he was afraid of falling in.

She used to play with him in the river on hot summer days when the community pool was too crowded. His father used to bring him and Scott there to fish—but they would always throw them back into the water. Stiles thinks that he’d do anything now to get thrown into the water, into something safe and familiar. But the river isn’t the same. The water is muddy and the level lowers more every year. No more fish swim here.

So Stiles comes here sometimes and wishes for the fish. He thinks he’s a fish. Birthed in water. Died and re-birthed in water, like some sort of gilled phoenix. He doesn’t know if he’s trying to swim upstream anymore or if the current’s taken him under.

Some days, like today, he thinks he’s drowning. He thinks he’s sinking deeper into the suffocating darkness. He picks up a rock, smooth and round, and skips it over the muddy water. It hits three times before it sinks beneath the surface. He loses sight of it, but sees it in his mind’s eye, lowering until it’s washed away, taken by the steady current, swept over rock after jagged rock until it settles somewhere deep, forgotten, entombed in the dark waters forever.

He’s lost in the image. He doesn’t know for how long until he feels the warmth of a hand on his shoulder, hears a voice that sounds familiar saying his name like it’s been repeated a few times before, each time getting more and more desperate. He flinches away, moving faster than he thought his sluggish limbs would, heart beating a tattoo in his chest even while his hand fumbles for the switchblade in his pocket. He’s just pulled it free, opened it up when he’s pushed to the ground, the lower half of his body somehow submerged in the river, his cheek pressed into the soft earth. A weight settles on his back and the hand holding the knife is twisted until his grip loosens and the knife falls into the river and is taken by the current.

“Stiles,” soothing, soothing. “Shh, it’s okay.” _Okay, okay, okay._

He swallows hard, pushes back the panic because he knows that voice. “Allison?”

The painful twist of his hand stops, but she doesn’t move from his back, instead settles more fully onto him so that her mouth is near his up-turned ear. “It’s me. You’re okay. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you.” He feels the tickle of her hair brushing the back of his neck and closes his eyes. “You just—you weren’t moving at all. I called your name like five times and you didn’t even blink and then you started walking into the river and I didn’t know what else to do—”

He shifts a little under her. “Hey, it’s okay.” Allison lets out a shaky sigh before she presses her cheek between his shoulder blades. “I, uh, I think I lost time again.” The words are whispered, barely audible over the sound of rushing water. Allison’s weight lifts off of him then, before she’s turning him onto his back so that she can look at his face. Her dark eyes are deep like the river and Stiles blinks away the sting of tears. “It’s okay, though. S’not the first time it’s happened.” He gives her a weak smile, but she doesn’t return it, instead settles herself on his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck.

She doesn’t say anything, so Stiles just moves his arms to cradle her back, pulling her in closer, setting his chin on top of her head. Allison is warm and Stiles is so, so cold. All of his limbs feel lethargic and numb, but he holds her anyway. It takes a while for Stiles to realize that the reason he can’t feel much is because his body is still half in the river, and the water is so cold he’s starting to feel it in his bones. He shifts with Allison until he’s sitting up and she’s all but settled in his lap, her legs resting in the river by Stiles’.

“Allison, we need to get up. Dry off.”

Allison nods against his shoulder but doesn’t move for a long moment, sighing. “Yeah, yeah okay.” She stands up in one graceful movement, finding her footing on the slippery rocks with ease before she’s offering Stiles a hand up. He takes it, struggles to his feet. His pants are soaked and muddy and his flannel shirt is full of dirt. Allison must see him taking stock of himself, because she squeezes his hand a little. “Let me give you a lift home.”

Stiles nods. He walked out here to try to clear his head, so he appreciates the lift. “Thanks.”

They walk together back to where her car is, weaving through the trees and over the walking bridge. It isn’t until he’s about to get in when he remembers his wet and dirty clothes. “Uh, I don’t want to get your seat dirty…”

Allison just gives him a small smile before she pops the trunk and pulls out a blanket, handing it to him. Stiles takes it without a word and wraps it around himself before he gets into the car. They drive in relative silence, the only noise the sound of the radio murmuring in the background. Before long she pulls into his driveway and is walking with him inside. Stiles heads toward his room to grab a change of clothes but turns back to Allison, “Hey, do you want to change out of your wet things? I probably have an old sweat suit if you want it.”

Allison is nodding at him and he sees the shiver she suppresses. “That’d be great.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” He drops the blanket on his bedroom floor before he grabs clean clothes for himself and Allison. He takes the clothes back out to her. “I’m gonna take a shower real quick, but there’s a bathroom right there,” he points toward the half-bath near the living room, “that you can change in. And help yourself to anything in the house. I’ll just be a couple minutes.”

Allison nods again, but he’s already walking away and heading into the bathroom he shares with his dad. He showers quickly, just long enough to wash off the dirt and the cold and the clinging fear of what almost happened to him, of what would’ve happened if Allison hadn’t been there. He turns off the water, drying and dressing in track pants and a t-shirt, before he heads back into his room, intending on putting his soiled clothes in the hamper before he finds Allison.

But she’s there, in his room, sitting on his bed. The gray sweat suit should wash her out, but when she looks up at him through her long lashes, he thinks that he’s never seen her look more beautiful. She shifts and pats the empty space next to her. Stiles sits, putting his arm around her back when she rests against his side. They don’t speak for a while, until Allison sighs, “I called Scott. Told him what happened.”

Stiles freezes, his body tensing. “You shouldn’t’ve done that. Scott has enough to worry about right now.”

Allison sits up but doesn’t remove Stiles’ arm from around her back. She lifts a hand to run it through his still-damp hair. “What do you mean, Stiles?”

Stiles doesn’t look at her, tries not to think about how the last time someone played with his hair like this was the night he watched his mother die, her hand in his hair as he watched the light leave her honey-brown eyes. It took him years of buzz cuts before he no longer felt the phantom fingers running through his hair every time the wind moved it. He feels his throat tighten and thinks about asking Allison to stop, but she’s leaning closer to him, putting her other hand on the cheek opposite from her and turning his head so that she can look him in the eye. “Stiles. _Stiles._ You aren’t a burden, you know that, right? There’s nothing—” she takes a deep breath, “There’s nothing _wrong_ with you, with what’s happening to you.” Her eyes are searching, “It’s not your fault, or anything you’re doing. There’s not some _reason_ that the nemoton is affecting you so differently than it’s affecting us.” She moves the hand from his hair to his cheek, so that she’s cradling his face and she whispers the words, “It doesn’t make you _weak_.”

Stiles presses his lips together, moves his hand from her back and turns his head away. “Thanks for saving me earlier, Allison, but you should go now.” The words come out dry, monotone, and he hates the way they make his stomach twist.

He expects Allison to get angry, to stand up and call him a jerk before she storms out, but instead she pushes his shoulders, hard, until he falls back onto the mattress with an ‘oof’. Allison is straddling his waist before he can move or ask her _what the hell_ and she’s leaning down to press her lips against his, softly, sweetly, and it makes his head spin. “Don’t you know by now that I’m not going anywhere?” She cups his cheek with one hand, sweeping her thumb over his cheekbone.

His voice is shaky, “Allison…what—?”

She presses another soft kiss to his cheek, “I’m not leaving, Stiles. You’re not alone.” A hand snakes back into his hair, but the bad memories don’t flood his head. Instead, he moves his hands to her back, spreading them out and running them up and down her spine. “You never have to be alone again. We’re in this together—you, me, Scott. We’re stronger together.” She’s pressing her face into the crook of his neck now, nuzzling in, and Stiles wraps his arms around her to hold her, a mirror of how they were near the river, even as he shakes his head.

“You’re wrong. You guys—you guys are the strong ones. Scott’s the strongest person I know—he’s so good and kind—and you—you’re like this amazing person who never breaks. You never need any help; know how to take care of yourself. You guys are the ones who are always there to save the day. The strong ones. I’m—I’m not. I can’t protect anyone. I’m just—just there to get in the way. Every time I try to help, things just get broken and people just get hurt and I can’t _do_ anything.” Allison’s looking at him now, reaching out to touch his face and he’s suddenly aware of the tears she’s wiping away. “I am the weak one. We all know it. We know why I’m the one seeing things and doing things that I can’t remember or explain. There’s a reason the nemeton keeps using me for a warning every goddamned time something bad is about to happen. Because I’m not strong enough to fight its influence.”

He closes his eyes, tries to block out the feeling of her fingers on his skin and her heart beating against his chest. “You guys act like you don’t even feel the darkness, like it’s something you can ignore. Well, I can’t. Lately it’s all I feel. It’s like this giant empty hole in my chest and sometimes it physically _hurts_ because all I feel is this overwhelming ache. Like there’s a black hole inside of me and it’s pulling at my heart. And y-you guys act like it’s n-nothing and I can’t—” He takes a broken breath before he shakes his head, refusing to open his eyes, to see the pity written on her face just like he knows it is.

Allison presses her lips—soft, warm skin—against his neck and he shivers. “I’m sorry, Stiles. I’m so sorry.” Another kiss, a hand settling above his heart, solid, “I do. I feel it. Not all the time, but I do. Sometimes I’ll go a few hours without it, but then it’s like someone’s placed their hand inside my chest and they’re twisting my h-heart.” Her eyelashes flutter against his jaw and he opens his eyes to stare at the blank ceiling. “It takes everything not to give in, you know. I may act like I’m not affected, but that’s all it is, Stiles—an act. You may think I’m strong, but—I’m not. I—I pretend like the darkness isn’t there because thinking about it makes me so, so scared. Sometimes…” She stops for a moment. “Sometimes when I look at my dad, I wonder if he can see it. I wonder if the darkness shows on my face, like a constant reminder to my father who thinks that he failed me, that it was his failure as a parent that made me sacrifice myself for him. And I _hate_ that I think I make him feel that way, because he’s _my father_.”

She’s sniffling into his neck and he feels wetness trail over his skin. Something inside of him twists. “Allison. Allison. Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. Shh.” He tightens his hold. “He knows you love him. All of our parents know that. I think—I think they all feel guilty. I know sometimes, when my dad doesn’t know I’m looking at him, I just see this guilt etched into the lines on his face, you know? And it kills me, because I don’t want him to feel like that, not over me. Not over what we did. And sometimes, when the darkness gets really bad, I remember why I did it, why we all did it. And I think that maybe it was worth it. At least for me. I mean, if any of the Stilinski men should die, it’s me.” Allison stills in his arms but he keeps talking, needing to get it out. “My dad makes a difference. He always does the right thing and he helps so many people who need it. He’s kind of a hero. And I just know, no matter what I do, I’ll never be great like him. So of course I’d give my life for his.”

Allison is lifting herself from his chest to look down at him. Her eyes are wet and there are tear tracks on her cheeks. “Stiles—”

He looks away from her big, brown eyes, back up at the colorless ceiling. “There’s a part of me that wishes you would’ve just left me alone earlier and let the nemeton drown me in the river.”

“Stiles!” His name is a sob, the spark of hysteria, Allison clutching at him, lifting him from where he’s laying on the bed to pull him into her arms, tears on his neck, shoulder, sobs—aching sobs that try to reach the emptiness inside of him, try to make him feel something but pain and guilt and hollowness and _not good enough_ and _never good enough_ and _you always hurt the ones you love._

And then Allison is kissing him again, kissing him like she could breathe life back into his empty lungs and his empty chest and crawl into his heart and wrap herself around it, just to feel it beating and let her know that Stiles isn’t as dead on the inside as she thinks he might be. Her hands are fisting his hair, tugging, pulling, making him feel something, _anything_ , and she’s moving herself into his lap and eradicating the space between them until she can feel him warm and alive under her and against her and she’s kissing him deeper and he’s kissing her back desperately, like he can somehow forget who he is and lose himself in her so he never has to feel anything again.

They pull apart gasping, hearts racing, fingers digging into soft skin, tear-stained faces, eyelashes wet, lips bruised. Staring. Eyes locked together like they’re mesmerized by messy hair and trembling bodies. “Stiles.” His name is a ghost of breath between them. He runs his hands up and down her back, willing his heart to settle. “Don’t—don’t ever wish that. I—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He lets out a huff of air. “I’m no good for you, Allison. I’ll just get you hurt, don’t you see that?”

She grips his hair again, hard. “No. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to pretend like I’m someone that you’re going to break. I’m not fragile. I’m skin and bones just like you. We’ll protect each other, Stiles. It’s not up to you to say what I should do or not do just because I _might_ get hurt. I’ve been hurt before and I’ll be hurt again.” She presses her lips to his. “But I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

Stiles’ mouth goes dry. “Allison…” he breathes her name almost reverently, reaching a hand up to cup her cheek. He kisses the corner of her mouth, her cheek, kisses away a stray tear. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

She smiles at him, placing her hand above his. “So don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I started writing this because I had to put my cat (my poor baby!) down on Monday and writing is pretty much the only way I deal with anything anymore. But then I really got into the idea for this and I may or may not make this fic the start of a series because it's probably my favorite thing I've written in a really long time.
> 
> So thank you for reading this and please leave a comment! I love any and all feedback on my work.


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